Russia hasn’t tried to overthrow our duly elected government, but the Democrats are in the process of trying to do that every day.

First, he told the Europeans they would have to start shouldering more of the cost of their own defense. Outrageous. How could anyone expect them to pay for their own security? Such is life in the new world order with America returning to power.

But the biggie was that he stood at a microphone beside Russian leader Vladimir Putin and basically said he trusted Russia more than his own intelligence personnel. By the way, he was referring to Robert Mueller and the phony investigation into Russian meddling in our 2016 elections.

The Democrats who are behind this investigation have stated that any meddling that may have happened did not change the vote count or the election's outcome, but they just can’t let it go because they must hate Trump and hope to get him out of office.

Ask yourself this, if you were in his position would you trust a product of the Democratic Party over Russia or not? Russia hasn’t tried to overthrow our duly elected government, but the Democrats are in the process of trying to do that every day.

I love watching these dramas play out and I love watching Trump and the people of the U.S. winning. We are back!

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump did what was unthinkable — even for his bizarre and unorthodox presidency. He shockingly stated at a press conference, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin at his side, that he believed Putin’s denial of any responsibility for interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, notwithstanding the clear and repeated pronouncements of all American intelligence agencies to the contrary. In pathetic support, Trump limply offered “I don’t know why Russia would try to harm the United States.” In response, former CIA Director John Brennan decried Trump’s statements as treasonous; Dan Coats, Indiana’s former senator, and now director of national intelligence, reinforced his unequivocal July 15 statement, that the Russians, including its government, sought to surreptitiously interfere with and influence the 2016 election, and admonished that the Russians continue this activity to the present; Thomas Friedman, noted political and social commentator, remarked that Trump was either a Russian agent, or wanted to appear like one; and numerous members of Congress, both Republican and Democratic, emphatically disagreed with Trump, supporting the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies concerning Russian attacks on our country’s democratic electoral process. Whether treason or not, Trump’s statements are remarkably disloyal to the governmental institutions of this country.

Similarly shocking, in the face of the previous day’s announcement by the Justice Department of a grand jury indictment of 12 members of Russia’s military intelligence unit of illegal interference in the 2016 election, Trump continued to call the Robert Mueller investigation a witch hunt. Earlier in the day, Trump had lamented that the poor state of US-Russian relations is due to the foolishness of Americans, whatever that means, while totally ignoring Russia’s forced annexation of the Crimea, the Russian-supported downing of a Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine, and Russian support of the Syrian dictator Assad, who has wielded deadly reprisals against dissidents.

Truly, July 16, 2018, is a day that should be recognized as a day of infamy, almost worse than December 7, 1941, because it involves an act of virtual betrayal by our own president rather than the act of a foreign enemy.

Larry Kane

Carmel

'Jesus never said the end justifies the means'

As a United Methodist pastor, I have only one comment on my fellow Christian Gary Varvel's recent assessment of his change of opinion regarding President Donald Trump. Jesus never said the end justifies the means.